Axial

So H. and I are drinking in Bar Pilar, whose relatively cheap beers (at least compared to Saint Ex next door) and excellent location vis-à-vis my apartment (around the corner) are being rapidly outweighed by the flood of carefully disheveled hipsters who storm it every night. I’m extrapolating, to maybe the one person who hasn’t heard it yet, my current rant about a particular philosophical age as it applies, however narcissistically, to my own existence:

“But there was also the Axial Age, when Grecian philosophical inquiry,
Middle Eastern monotheism, Buddhism and Confucianism all developed simultaneously,” I say, the top of the bar cool on my forehead. “That might have been when people started tackling the Heavy Questions as opposed to relying on superstition and rituals with vaguely obsessive-compulsive overtones. All those Axial Age lines of inquiry, of course, came to the same conclusion that one's ego was the harbinger of destruction and that, to survive as a people, you had to aspire to selflessness and self-control. Which is an argument that religion is a sort of societal-genetic meme allowing the perpetuation of entire groups of individuals, much as certain fish have a pack mentality that makes a few sacrifice themselves so the group as a whole can survive when a large predator approaches; but that's outside the scope of this discussion. More to the point, maybe I get depressed and upset because I'm too ambitious and ego-driven. Maybe the Axial Age is telling me to sit on the couch and smoke more pot.”

H. has heard about this. “Are you still on that ‘Axial Age’ poop?”

“Yeah, I’m just another solipsistic asshole.”

“What does that even mean?”

“That I’m having a quarter-life crisis.”

“Shut up. Don’t use that term ever again.”

It’s true, though. I am one week like this one away from finding a Buddhist monastery somewhere and sitting in the lotus position for the next forty years exploring the non-nature of the metaphysical singularity. Whatever brain chemical governs one’s sense of self-worth is at an all-time low; it becomes a near-physical battle not to condemn my own life as total mission failure on a regular basis. Then I find myself detesting the impulse towards self-pity and head outside to run a few miles. I can’t win. But I can apply for new jobs. Getting out of town this weekend will help, too.